City Schools Chancellor Richard Carranza played fast and loose with Gifted & Talented stats in bashing the controversial program at a meeting this month, critics claim.

Speaking to District 4 parents in Queens, Carranza said the program — which channels top scorers into exclusive schools — qualifies too many kids.

“When you have over 35 percent of your students be designated as gifted and talented, we need to bottle the water we’re drinking and ship it all over the place,” he said. “Because that is far beyond the percentage of gifted and talented that, from a statistical perspective, should be found in the population.”

Those inordinate numbers, Carranza said, point to a flawed system. But in citing that percentage, Carranza was referencing only kids who actually took the exam — and he was also off on that figure.

A total of 9,074, or 28 percent, of 32,664 test takers qualified for either district or citywide G&T programs last year, according to Department of Education figures.

But only a small percentage of all city kids actually vie for the kindergarten- through third-grade spots. Of all pupils in those grades, only 2.7 percent qualified for G&T seats.

“The chancellor might want to brush up on his statistics here,” said CUNY education Professor David Bloomfield, who noted that he has separate objections to the G&T program. “That 35 percent is not representative of the whole system.”

Some parents in the crowd took exception to Carranza’s presentation.

The chancellor voiced additional concerns about the program, which obligates kids as young as 4 to take an entrance exam.

“Using a test at 4 years old to identify a student for Gifted and Talented really measures more the privilege — and I’m not talking about wealth, I’m talking about the privilege in the home — of a student rather than the true giftedness of the student,” Carranza said.

A DOE spokesman said Carranza “made clear that there is a role for gifted- and-talented programs. Currently, about 30 percent of students who test are designated as gifted and talented.”